


siren.

by watchoutforbats



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Bisexual Piper McLean, Character Study, Depressed Piper Mclean, Depression, Gen, Piper throughout the years, Pipers life before Wilderness school, Self-Hatred, Tristan Mclean is a Dick in this, Unreliable Narrator, a little bit out of character, but nothing serious, in the first chapter she is 6-15 with some major time jumps, piper mclean centric, thats not important but its there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:41:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22958122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watchoutforbats/pseuds/watchoutforbats
Summary: pip·er/ˈpīpər/nounnoun: piper;Plural noun: pipersPhrasespay the piper — bear the consequences of an action or activity that one has enjoyed."we will have to pay the piper, and the price is apt to be a high one"Piper Mclean is not a normal girl.However, special isn't always good.
Relationships: Piper McLean & Leo Valdez
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29





	siren.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, thanks for clicking. I did post this once before but i had to make some changes so i took it down and reposted it. here it is, i guess. Basically, this is snapshots of Pipers life before wilderness school. I figured if Piper knew about her powers, she would be dealing with some internal turmoil, so this is the result. 
> 
> Her dad, Tristan, is a bit of a douche because he's never around, and Piper has some pretty self deprecating thoughts, which could indicate depression, but those are the only warnings i can think of. 
> 
> (sorry for the excessive use of brackets) 
> 
> ps. i have no idea what the quote by Jean Lorrain is supposed to mean. i just though it looked cool.

Piper doesn’t sing often. It worsens the magic, she knows. She doesn’t understand what it is or where it comes from, but she knows the magic is there.   
  
Her father says secrets are kept for a reason. She knows that he is speaking of her mother when he talks about secrets like this, but he must mean all secrets. Right?   
  
(of course not, Piper knows, ~~but she doesn’t care~~ )   
  
Piper thinks that she has a very good reason to keep the magic a secret. If she tells anyone, they’ll take it away. Piper does not like it when people take things away from her. Mostly, she just asks nicely, and they give it back.   
  
(not the magic, they’ll never take away the magic, _she won’t let them_ )   
  
Piper loves the magic, it makes her feel special, like her favorite Disney Princesses. ‘Princesses always get a happy ending’, she reminds herself every time she feels lonely.   
  
~~(she feels lonely a lot)~~  
  
Her Daddy might be gone again, but he’ll be back, and in the end, he’ll realize what a wonderful daughter he has, and he’ll never have to leave again. Because Piper is special, she has magic, so she will get her happy ending.   
  
(He leaves her with a girl names Meredith. Meredith lets Piper do whatever she wants. Piper does not need to use the magic, Meredith doesn’t care.)   
  
But he leaves _again._  
  
And _again._   
  
**_And again._**  
  
And Piper?   
  
She does not get happy ending.   
  
(what was she expecting really?)   
  
  
  
_if you were an angel, I wouldn’t be surprised, but, your pretty shining halo, is built upon lies,_  
  
  
Piper’s first love comes in the form of eleven-year-old Nathan Matthews. Nathan is pretty. He has dark eyes, like midnight skies, and hair so blond it looked like sunlight.   
  
(she doesn’t know it yet, but Piper has a thing for blonds)   
  
Nathan’s mother brings brownies to the bake sale. Piper thinks that, if she and Nathan ever got married, Mrs. Matthews would be her mom too. Piper likes that idea. The bake sale ends at two. Piper’s father doesn’t even drop by.   
  
(the kids jeer at her after school)   
  
(‘Stop’ she says.)   
  
(they do)   
  
At recess she pulls Nathan Matthews to the side. He smiles at her prettily. He asks if she wants to join their soccer game. She says she has something to tell him. He’s always happy to listen, he is such a good friend. Such a happy boy.   
  
  
(“you want me to be your girlfriend, okay?”   
“I do.”)   
  
~~(he doesn’t)~~  
  
  
Nathan doesn’t smile after that day. The teachers question him. They ask him if he is feeling okay, they ask him if he needs to go home. He says he is fine, just a little sad, but he doesn’t know why. Nathan doesn’t smile ever again after that. He latches on to Piper and never leaves her side.   
  
_(‘and he was such a happy boy-’_  
_‘yes, what a shame, what a shame’)_  
  
Nathan kisses Piper in the rain on a Friday night. He snuck out of the house to meet her, she just asked to leave. Her new nanny, a woman named Caroline, said yes.   
  
~~(they always say yes)~~   
  
Piper beams when she breaks away from her first kiss. Nathan does not.   
  
(‘You liked that.’ She says   
‘I did’)   
  
(he does not smile.)   
  
  
Piper breaks up with him three days later, saying he is ‘boring’ now. Nathan is even more miserable than before. He transfers schools within the month.   
  
(the doctors diagnose him with depression)   
  
(he is **eleven** )   
  
Piper moves on.   
  
  
_“The madness of the eyes is the lure of the abyss. Sirens lurk in the dark depths of the pupils as they lurk at the bottom of the sea, that I know for sure - but I have never encountered them, and I am searching still for the profound and plaintive gazes in whose depths I might be able, like Hamlet redeemed, to drown the Ophelia of my desire.”_  
  
_― Jean Lorrain, Monsieur De Phocas_  
  
Piper gets better at using the magic. There are no more mistakes, like Nathan. She whips up love and creates adoration, making it seem as true as the real thing. Piper is good at what she does. Piper needs to be loved   
  
(she needs it, she needs it, she need _sitsheNEE **DS-**_ **)**   
  
  
~~(she is so lonely)~~  
  
Her dad is busy with his movies these days. He never sticks around long enough. She knows he is angry with her. She has gone through seven nannies in the last year. Some of the were fired, some quit. One, Ms. Kaylee, even went missing after attempting to kidnap Piper.   
  
(it sounds insane, but Piper swears she saw her turn into a fiery vampire before she disappeared)   
  
(unsurprisingly, ~~no one~~ everyone believes her)   
  
So, Piper talks her way out of everything. Talking has always gotten her what she wanted, so she takes what she wants.   
  
(she’s a spoiled brat and she knows it)   
  
~~(talking has never gotten her the one thing she really wants.)~~  
  
(Piper just wants her dad to come home)   
  
People say Piper is beautiful. They say she’ll be a heart breaker when she’s older. Piper just wants to love somebody enough for them to want her for more then her looks. She doesn’t want to break more hearts.   
  
(not after Nathan, sometimes she still wakes up in a freezing sweat; remembering her cold disinterest. No one deserves that.)   
  
(she disgusts herself)   
  
  
Piper learned many years ago, that she is no princess, and there is no happy ending for her. if she wants a happy ending, she must make it herself. However, Piper has never been very good at making things. Taking them? Yes, she can take anything she wants.   
  
(she wishes, sometimes, that she could take someone else’s happy ending. it would be so much easier)   
  
(she throws up in her bathroom from that thought alone)   
  
_(she disgusts herself)_  
  
Her father still doesn’t come home.   
  
~~(she is so lonely)~~  
  
Piper writes a letter to herself before she steals the car. She burns it.   
  
She writes a letter to herself before she goes away to Wilderness school. She burns that too.   
  
She writes a letter to her mom, and then sticks it in the shoe box with the hundreds of other letters she has written to her mom.   
  
**She burns it.**   
  
She gets three months of detention for starting a fire. “arson” the gym teacher calls it. She takes one look at the ratty baseball cap on the man's head, the baggy, sweaty shirt and the frequent use of his megaphone, and decides he must be very, very, single. She scoffs as he calls her ‘cupcake’ and leads her to detention.   
  
She meets Leo Valdez in detention. 

**Author's Note:**

> consider leaving a review? or kudos? thanks for reading and,, uhh, 
> 
> <3


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